Blame Game by Beach Bunny
by Lana FIeischli
I was told that I should try out this EP, because Beach Bunny is really good. I had never listened to Beach Bunny, but I was open to the idea. The album cover caught my attention right away, which is good since an album cover is really the first impression you get.The bright colors and the metaphor of the girls playing a video game when the album is called Blame Game piqued my interest, and made me want to hear the story.
I began with the first song, “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)”. The song immediately gave me 2000’s indie pop vibes. It felt like the song would be in a movie where the girl plays it in her bedroom and grabs a hairbrush and starts dancing and singing. It made me want to do that even though I didn’t know the words, and I did. I even sent it to my friend and she said kind of the same thing. Don’t lie to yourselves, we all pretend like we are the main character in a movie and play music and dance in our bedrooms. No shame.
The second song “Love Sick” follows the same feeling as the previous song, but adds more sadness-- not too much though. Listening to this song, I began to realize how the songs chart a relationship with a guy. It’s definitely a bit toxic. In “Good Girls (Don’t Get Used)”, she talks about the guy she likes, but how he’s always not treating her the greatest and how he apologizes, but his apologies don’t mean much anymore. In “Love Sick”, she sings about how she is over having this guy treat her badly.
The following song, “Nice Guys” is her explaining why many people don’t like “nice guys”, and why her guy is just a “nice guy”. Following the theme, each song gets slower or sadder as the EP goes on. “Nice Guys” clearly explains the problem with the “nice guys” that many people come across. The thing about the “nice guy” is that that’s not usually the case. These are the guys that make people fall for them because they seem like such a good person, but then they gaslight you or just treat you so badly. People wonder why many girls often say that they like “bad boys” or whatever. I think the reasoning behind that is that with a “bad guy”, we already know what to expect. It’s kind of like, “hey, at least they’re honest.” I know, that’s messed up. But with a “nice guy”, he’s usually lying and I think that’s what she’s trying to convey.
The last song I felt would hit hard with a lot of people, especially women or girls who have been subject to sexual violence. It’s the title song, “Blame Game” where she gives examples of harassment or sexual assault that is normalized in our society. She mentions how when a case of sexual violence comes up, the first thing law enforcement wants to know is what she was wearing, which can go either way. In the past, they’ve used the fact that a woman was wearing jeans, so she “couldn’t have been raped”, (which is literally insane), on the other hand, they might say that what she was wearing was “asking for it”. She also references how the media portrays women as objects, and how society has girls believe that their body is for someone else’s satisfaction. She even brings up how many school dress codes are incredibly sexist about how girls can’t show their shoulders because the boys apparently wouldn’t be able to control themselves.
I personally felt that the message in this EP was so strong and easy to hear. It is empowering to have these lyrics for the world to listen to, because it’s such a strong message. Also, I completely agree with what she is saying. It’s not okay to be scared to walk down the street for anyone. It’s not okay to ask girls to smile, or comment on what they’re wearing, or how they look. Girls shouldn’t grow up in a world where they are taught that their bodies are objects, because that’s just not true.